A BUSY Bangor doctor’s surgery is set to shift to a new location two miles away from the area it currently serves.
Silverbirch medical practice, located in the heavily suburban Kilmaine part of town, has released plans that will see it move to a street located at the rear of Ward Park’s playing fields close to the centre of town.
The practice plans to take over a £450,000 building on Broadway that was previously home to a nursery that closed down during the pandemic, never to reopen.
In details released on their website, officials at Silverbirch said the move will ‘improve patient satisfaction and the environment for all those using the practice’, as it will be less noisy and have improved heating and ventilation systems.
The surgery’s new home would also boost car parking and improve access for disabled people, while also allowing for a larger reception area that will afford patients greater privacy as well as providing space for better toilets and baby changing facilities.
Officials say the shift will improve both patient satisfaction and staff morale, provide space for in-house training, and also increase the number and range of staff in primary care teams. The surgery has been consulting about the move with patients over the course of this month, and also filed plans to build an extension to the Broadway building that will allow the move to happen.
Those plans haven’t gone down well with people who live close to the surgery’s intended new home, as by the time of going to press 37 objections to the idea had been registered with planning authorities.
Home to around 2,700 patients, so far Silverbirch has not publicly stated when it hopes to move to Broadway. The shift has won the backing of officials in the health system, with a senior Department of Health official writing to planners expressing support for the idea, stating that the surgery has outgrown its current premises and revealing that construction on the extension to its new home could begin during the current financial year using department grants.
